Mark Twain's Pudd'nhead Wilson: Race, Conflict and Culture

Published by Duke University Press 1990

Mark Twain's Pudd'nhead Wilson

Race, Conflict and Culture

Edited by: Susan Gillman and Forrest G. Robinson
With contributions by: James M. Cox

https://doi.org/10.1515/9780822381624

Overview
Contents

About this book

This collection seeks to place Pudd’nhead Wilson—a neglected, textually fragmented work of Mark Twain’s—in the context of contemporary critical approaches to literary studies. The editors’ introduction argues the virtues of using Pudd’nhead Wilson as a teaching text, a case study in many of the issues presently occupying literary criticism: issues of history and the uses of history, of canon formation, of textual problematics, and finally of race, class, and gender.

In a variety of ways the essays build arguments out of, not in spite of, the anomalies, inconsistencies, and dead ends in the text itself. Such wrinkles and gaps, the authors find, are the symptoms of an inconclusive, even evasive, but culturally illuminating struggle to confront and resolve difficult questions bearing on race and sex. Such fresh, intellectually enriching perspectives on the novel arise directly from the broad-based interdisciplinary foundations provided by the participating scholars. Drawing on a wide variety of critical methodologies, the essays place the novel in ways that illuminate the world in which it was produced and that further promise to stimulate further study.

Contributors. Michael Cowan, James M. Cox, Susan Gillman, Myra Jehlen, Wilson Carey McWilliams, George E. Marcus, Carolyn Porter, Forrest Robinson, Michael Rogin, John Carlos Rowe, John Schaar, Eric Sundquist

Topics

Frontmatter Publicly Available Download PDF	i
Contents Publicly Available Download PDF	v
Introduction Publicly Available Download PDF	vii
Pudd'nhead Wilson revisited James M. Cox Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	1
The sense of disorder in Pudd'nhead Wilson Forrest G. Robinson Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	22
Mark Twain and homer Plessy Eric J. Sundquist Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	46
Francis Galton and mark twain the natal autograph in Pudd'nhead Wilson Michael rogin Michael Rogin Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	73
"Sure ldentifiers" race, science, and the law in Pudd'nhead Wilson Susan Gillman Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	86
The ties that bind race and sex in Pudd'nhead Wilson Myra Jehlen Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	105
Roxana's plot Carolyn Porter Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	121
Fatal speculations murder, money, and manners in Pudd'nhead Wilson John Carlos Rowe Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	137
Pudd'nhead Wilson on democratic governance Wilson Carey Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	177
"What did he reckon would become of the other half if he killed his half?" doubled, divided, and crossed selves in pudd'nhead Wilson; or, Mark Twain as cultural critic in his own times and ours George E. Marcus Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	190
Some of the ways of freedom in Pudd'nhead Wilson John H. Schaar Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	211
Notes Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	229
About the contributors Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	255
Index Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	257

Language: English
Publisher: Duke University Press
Audience: Professional and scholarly;
Pages
- Main content: 280

eBook

Published: July 20, 1990
ISBN: 9780822381624